The argument of if hyper photo realism is 'art' or not is one of those arguments that make my faith in art waiver. It's the attitude behind the argument that gets to me, not necessarily the argument itself. It's the same for the argument of is cartooning and animation art, or is graphic design art, or carpentry, or printmaking, or typography really art? It's the question of "when is a chair a work of art or just a chair"? That question was brought up so much in both art ethics, art appreciation, art history (especially contemporary and modern art history) and even in the skill class such as 3D design, Sculpture, Life Drawing, and Watercolor. And when ever I answered a chair can be both a chair and a work of art, I was told 'this is why you can never be a real artist'.
Apparently the reigning definition of when something was a work of art when I was attending classes was 'art is something created for the sake of art only and has no practical usage or value outside of art itself'. So it did not matter how gorgeous, skilled, emotive, emotional, fun, or breathtaking something was to some one. If any practical use could be had from it or if it didn't explore some 'art concept' for the sake of 'exploring it', it was not art.
By that definition many of the old masters, especially mural artists, and beautiful architecture that one would consider art was not 'real art'. And all the people who angrily or gleefully declared something as 'non art' would display this air of arrogance, of snobbishness, of holier then though attitudes. That there can be only 'one type of art' or that the different types of art should never mix. Even in art made from mixed media there was rules. You could only combine certain things in certain ways or it was not art.
I hated it. I hated it so much. Art should not be retrained like this. Yes there are formulas and techniques but half of what makes art 'art' is what is behind it: The dedication, the heart, the effort and the constant exploration and discovery as one tries to improve and expand their own skills. Yes some people create art only for shock value and sensationalism alone, which a lot of people call sexualization even though a lot of it has nothing to do at all with sexualization. They just want your attention, to gain popularity, and sometimes to display their unique , not normally accepted in any other fashion weirdness. But not all artists are like that. For many artists, its far far deeper then that.
Art, and what the general populace sees as art, keeps changing, growing and reflecting the world around it. It's a mirror of the human soul in a way. That's why there are art movements in history. And each movement reflects the place and the cultural climate of the place it sprang from. Right now, yes people want to see realism. Its a product of today's technology as well as a need for things to be 'real' even when they are not. They also want to see deceptively simplistic almost impressionistic stuff. Stuff like cartoons and animation because they want simplicity in their lives. The culture for many places is extremely lost, or mixed up and people want to simplify it, clean it up.
Plus the boundaries between different places and cultures are falling apart gradually, thanks to better communication and things like the Internet. Thus the boundaries between different types and levels of art are also deteriorating. Artists today are stretching and exploring, some times floundering, and sometimes excelling and souring thanks to all this new information, new ways of thinking and seeing the world.
Artists walk a fine line as they try to both appease their audiences as well as improve themselves. For some, that's the before mentioned shock, sensitization, and sexualization routes. For others, that's studies of different materials, painting just to see how the paint moves and acts, not actually creating anything in the process accept for understanding of the media. For some the line they walk is making amazingly serene and calm spaces out of carefully and mathematically placed stretches and swathes of multiple layers of string, that string sometimes collected from around the world to add some political commentary. Speaking of, for some artists it is visual political commentary either in the form of cartoons or more traditionally realistic works that fulfills this balancing act. For many artists it's exploring ones own self and your own reactions to the world around you.
In the process of walking this fine line, almost all artists go through phases and their style and media choices sometimes changes as they improve their skills. For others they find that one type of art, that one genre, they are good at and focus solely on that, perfecting and refining it.
That all said, there are going to be people and fellow artists out there that do not like your work. They may not like hyper realism photo like painting. Or they may not, like me, like sensationalism for sensationalism sake. That's fine. But I ask those people, and myself, to not say it's 'not art'. Just because you do not like something or prefer a different type of art, does not mean you can not appreciate what they did. It takes skill and talent to do what they do. Even if it's just convincing people that a basket ball suspended in an empty fish tank is art and managing to sell it for millions, or crafting a simple well constructed chair that fits you when you sit in it like a glove, taking an oil canvas and painting multiple layers of white paint over it to explore the way it feels and creates a landscape or texture on said canvas, or drawing a simple stylized cartoon of a chubby cat batting at string.
There is a little piece of us in everything we do. Talk to the artist or research them, find out why they do what they do. Try to understand them. And it's okay to decided you don't like their work. Its okay to say why you do not like their art. It's just not your cup of tea. We all get that. That's fine. Your welcome to your opinions and feelings. But stop trying to take away the other artists cup of tea, especially if your not willing to taste it and share it first. Stop trying to tell them their work is not art and they are not real artists. If this belief of mine means I am not a 'real artist' too, then so be it. I would rather be a Cartoonist, an illustrator, a graphic designer, a Hentai artist, a crafter... a so called 'fake' artist, then be a 'real artist' or 'fine artist' that acts like a snob or bully.
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